MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
10 Anna and the Apocalypse
Vertigo Releasing
Anna and the Apocalypse asks the question, “What would happen if High School Musical was a gory zombie movie set on Christmas in Scotland?” The answer is a delightful, infectious, and bizarre pastiche of styles and tropes that dismantle the standard Christmas musical. With surprisingly catchy music, upbeat performances from a committed young cast, and smooth direction from John McPhail, this eccentric film spikes the eggnog in a crowd-pleasing way.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
9 I Trapped the Devil
IFC Midnight
Josh Lobo poured all of himself into his debut movie, writing, producing, editing, and directing the tense and claustrophobic little gem I Trapped the Devil. A man and his wife visit his estranged brother on Christmas after years of tragedy have kept them at odds with each other; his brother has a history of mental health conditions, so his family is skeptical and horrified when he claims to have literally locked the devil up in his basement. The man trapped behind the fortified door, whether a victim or Satan, becomes the catalyst for an intense reunion between bitter brothers. Constantly awash in gorgeous Christmas lights and colors, Lobo’s indie feature expertly captures the fraught filial tensions and family drama which makes Christmas so difficult for many.
8 The Ice Harvest
Focus Features
Harold Ramis’ acidic comedy-thriller The Ice Harvest captures John Cusack at his best as a divorced, misanthropic alcoholic spending the night of Christmas Eve plotting to steal $2 million from his mobster boss. Cynical but hilarious, the film portrays Christmas through the lens of film noir, brimming as it is with femme fatales, hard-drinking loners, vicious criminals, and a suffering anti-hero at the heart of it all. Bolstered by an excellent supporting cast (Oliver Platt, Billy Bob Thornton, and Connie Nielsen are especially fantastic) and beautiful imagery of a snowy Kansas Christmas, The Ice Harvest is dark but delicious.
7 Better Watch Out
Well Go USA
A cute but precocious 12-year old and his 17-year old babysitter believe someone is trying to kill them in the nasty Christmas shocker Better Watch Out. Surprisingly cruel and unexpected in its narrative twists, Chris Peckover’s film revels in subverting expectations; what begins as one kind of holiday movie turns into something else entirely. The young Olivia DeJonge proves why she is an actor “poised to dominate” the film industry in the future; she is a real Christmas star in an unsettling movie which has become a new Christmas horror classic.
6 Blast of Silence
Universal Pictures
Allen Baron wrote, directed, and starred in the weird Christmas neo-noir Blast of Silence, which was largely forgotten by critics and the public alike until the Criterion Collection digitally restored it and released it on DVD. Extremely low-budget and almost better because of it, the movie follows a lonely mafia hit man who runs into an old flame during Christmas time as he awaits instructions for his next murder. Featuring poetic, melancholic narration and great cinematography of 1960’s New York during Christmastime, the film is a gritty reminder that for many, the holiday can be especially lonely.
5 A Christmas Tale
Bac Films
Arnaud Desplechin’s nearly schizophrenic holiday film follows a bickering family which comes together for Christmas when their mother develops leukemia. Funny and tragic in equal measure, with extreme tonal shifts unbalancing the audience at every turn, this marvelously acted ensemble luxuriates in the beauty of both snowy France and the magnetic Catherine Deneuve, one of the greatest French actresses of all time. Defiantly different and empathetic in its portrayal of family, A Christmas Tale “skates on thin ice across a crowded lake,” as Roger Ebert once put it, “arrives safely on the far shore, and shares a cup of hot cocoa and marshmallows with Death.”
4 Mon Oncle Antoine
National Film Board of Canada
One of the greatest coming-of-age films of all time, and perhaps the most beloved Canadian film ever made, Claud Jutra’s Mon Oncle Antoine delves deep into Christmas through the eyes of a growing boy whose life will be changed and innocence shattered by the end of the holidays. Beautifully directed and performed, the film meticulously captures the holiday festivities of small town life while grasping deeper, universal truths about death, childhood, and family.
3 White Reindeer
IFC Films
Zach Clark utilizes Christmas to dissect suburbia, capitalism, whiteness, and chauvinism in his bizarre and brilliant White Reindeer. Led by Anna Margaret Hollyman in one of the greatest and most underrated performances of the past decade, Clark’s film observes what happens when the death of a devoted suburban wife’s husband unleashes dirty secrets, and the strong friendships between very different women which blossom as a result. It’s quietly hilarious and almost inspiring to watch the fabric of this woman’s life be unraveled until it finally reveals herself in the process; it’s a holiday miracle.
2 Black Christmas
Warner Bros.
Although Silent Night, Bloody Night predated Black Christmas by two years as the first holiday horror flick, it is the latter which has become an all-time classic. Extremely influential to the horror genre and considered to be the progenitor of slasher films and a new wave of horror, Black Christmas created and mastered many of the tropes which have since been overused for five decades. Remade twice but never as effectively as the first, the film captures the merriness of the season on a college campus but injects it with dread. The director, Bob Clark, knows Christmas: he went on to create the ubiquitous favorite A Christmas Story, but it is this specific Christmas classic which appeals to the weird and the wild.
1 Christmas, Again
Charles Poekel
Charles Poekel’s Christmas, Again may be a masterpiece with a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but hardly anyone has heard of it; that’s a shame, considering it’s one of the most achingly intimate Christmas films ever made. Though deeply melancholic, the story of a Christmas tree salesman suffering after a break-up delivers a great deal of hope and resolve through its empathetic characters, gorgeous setting, and genuine warmth. It’s a sad film but, like great tragedy, its melancholy somehow makes the unbearable (loneliness, heartbreak, Christmas) more bearable.
